I'm reading that book now. It's about this autistic guy in England, he wrote a book. It's friggin fascinating how he thinks.

:continuesprotestingmisplacedcomma:

I think we had "talked" about this guy a few threads back, Beav. There was a one hour documentary done on him on Discovery, I believe....and then 60 minutes did a piece on him. He's helping researchers gain some added insight into Autism, since he's the rare person who has signs of Autism but can communicate how his mind works.

I think we had "talked" about this guy a few threads back, Beav. There was a one hour documentary done on him on Discovery, I believe....and then 60 minutes did a piece on him. He's helping researchers gain some added insight into Autism, since he's the rare person who has signs of Autism but can communicate how his mind works.

Sounds fascinating, I'll have to pick it up.

I saw this program a while back where this woman with the classic symptoms of autism was attending university. She had this typing device she would use that would then vocalize what she had typed. She was very intelligent, articulate and insightful. It's a very mysterious disorder.

I think autsim rates are now 1 in 3. In the children I know that seems about right.

Wait - one in 3 kids is autistic? Really? I think it's an evolutionary step, actually. We need to evolve or else the machines will take us over someday. Autistic savants seem to be able to use more of their brain in some regards, but they also lose some abilities we take for granted. I think eventually the majority of people will be able to think like savants.

An interesting hypothesis I've read about the increase in Autism cases in recent years is this: there are many people who have milder forms of autism (Asperger's syndrome), many undiagnosed. Many of these people end up in sciencey or technological fields. Due to current technology over the past few decades, people with similar interests tend to congregate and work together. Also, more females now enter these fields. So, they're more prone to meet, marry, and have children...and the resulting children have higher rates of Autism.

I believe that they found much greater rates in Silicon Valley than in other areas of the country.